The Ladies' Midnight Swimming Club(64)

In the beginning, everything about the place had made him feel more isolated. Everyone knew everyone and if they didn’t, as in Niall’s case, they knew enough about them to have made up their minds about you. But it was a funny thing, because once he met Dan and they became friends, it felt as if he had some proper connection to the place. Gradually, he got to know people. The kid in the chipper was called Damian – he was all right, not that Niall would exactly call him a friend, but it was nice to at least have someone sit next to him on the wall overlooking the beach some days.

And then, there was Zoe Huang.

They’d sat on the pier for almost an hour the previous day. She had just come along and plopped down next to him, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. They dangled their feet over the side, just tipping the cold water with their toes. Although summer had arrived, the sea was still icy, but it was such a warm day, the cool water was pleasant.

‘So, what do you do when you’re not sitting here on the pier?’ Zoe turned to him; she was making fun of him, but in a nice way.

‘There’s not much to do around here, is there?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Zoe said and she lay back on the warm concrete, shading her eyes from the blinding sun overhead. ‘My father is dropping me into town on Saturday. There’s a fair on, not anything huge or as exciting as you’d have in Dublin probably, but all my friends from school will be there… if you wanted to tag along.’

‘I, oh, all right, yeah, why not,’ he said lying down next to her. The sun was warm on his skin, his feet still dangling over the side of the water. ‘I suppose it’s the one thing that this place is missing… kids our age.’

‘Well there are kids,’ she said and turned to look at him for a moment, because maybe they both knew the boys who normally hung around the boats were the kind who saw anyone who was an outsider or different as someone they could mark out to bully. ‘No, in my school there are lots of kids, just like us, you know?’

‘Yeah, I think I do.’ He smiled; there was no need to say any more.

‘I should be getting back to the shop. My dad will be expecting me and if I’m late he… well, he worries about me.’ She stood over him for a moment, looking out across the water and back towards the beach. ‘I think it’s going to be a great summer,’ she said softly. ‘Don’t forget Saturday, at two o’clock. You know where my dad’s piano shop is?’

‘Sure, on Garden Square?’

‘Yep, don’t be late,’ she called as she ran back up towards the village.

Niall stayed there for a while, until the sun became a little cooler, covered over by some light passing clouds. He decided to go back to the house and make a cup of coffee for himself and listen to some music until his mother came home.

Just as he closed the front door, he heard the phone ring loudly in the kitchen.

‘Dad?’ His father never rang him, not unless there was something important or it was an occasion.

‘Niall, I’m just trying to catch up with your mother. Is she there?’

‘Um, no. It’s just me, actually.’

‘Ah, how are you?’

‘Good, really good,’ Niall managed, because he was actually; he just realised.

‘And your mother, she’s…’ His father’s words drifted off into silence. When had they forgotten what to say to each other? Niall suddenly realised that speaking with his father had somehow become an effort over the last few years. Perhaps it was the distance? Or maybe it was the fact that their worlds had spun much further than just miles apart? Time too had separated them, so the little everyday things they might have once shared now only stood between them.

‘At work,’ Niall said.

‘Of course she is…’ His father sounded as if he was distracted.

‘Dad,’ Niall said tentatively. ‘I’m really excited about going out to Sydney to you…’

‘I’ll be glad to have you. Now your mother has decided to move to that backwater permanently, I could see why you’d want to get out of there.’

‘She’s told you about the practice, then?’

‘Yep, she even suggested that you start in the school nearest to the village and give country living a go. Of course, that wouldn’t do. I mean we’re city boys, aren’t we?’

‘She never said a word about me moving schools.’

‘Well, maybe she knew how you’d react; no youngster wants to leave the city and the best boarding school in the country to live among a bunch of yokels.’

‘Actually, I have a friend who goes to that school.’ He didn’t add that Zoe Huang was one more friend than he had in his own school.

‘And I suppose all they talk about is fishing and farming.’

‘As it happens, they don’t have a farm. Her father is a piano restorer. She has no interest in farming or fishing,’ so far as Niall knew from their afternoon on the pier. All they’d talked about was books, games and films. Zoe was as big a reader as Niall was, so they’d had lots of books in common.

‘Anyway, what does it matter? You’re coming out to Sydney and I was going to run it by your mother first, but I’ve found an all-boys private boarding school here. It’s pricey and a bit of a track to and from where we are, but you’ll be able to come back here to the apartment in term time. I can’t wait to show you Sydney; you’re going to love it.’ His father sounded excited at the prospect.